Conventional mowers provide an engine (or "motor") which drives a belt. The belt engages and drives a pulley or sheave mounted on the upper portion of a shaft or spindle. The spindle is rotatably supported by bearings within a housing carried by the mower deck or frame. A lower portion of the spindle extends below the housing and has a mower blade mounted thereto for rotation with the spindle. Therefore, it may be seen that the belt drives the blade through the spindle.
One example of a spindle assembly according to the prior art is such as that shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,989,398 to Kuhn, et al., entitled "Keyless Sheave and Spindle", issued Feb. 5, 1991. In this patent, a configuration is shown which includes a pulley structure has a generally circular opening through its center, and a spindle having a neck portion of generally circular cross section which can rotate relative to the pulley, thus allowing the pulley to rotate relative to the spindle except for the provision of frictional force therebetween.
Although the above-referenced prior art configurations have found certain acceptance, improvements to spindle configurations are always welcome.